Innoplexus focuses on product development
for Big Data Analytics. The company helps in
the future of how data is curated, analyzed
and consumed by disrupting prevailing
processes through cutting edge technology,
innovation and a superlative ability to
understand business challenges. Dr Gunjan
Bharadwaj, Founder and Chairman,
Innoplexus shares his Views on Data Analytics
scenario in India and Globally and How Data
analytics is enhancing accuracy and cost
cutting in Pharma and Lifescience sector, in
an email interaction with Mahesh Kallayil.

Could you please tell us about Innoplexus'offering to
Pharmaceutical industry?
Innoplexus is on a mission to fundamentally transform
the way data and analytics is produced and consumed in
the Pharmaceutical Industry.
With growing volumes, veracity and velocity of data;
the future cannot be hundreds of analysts curating
data manually and selling it at a significant premium
to Pharmaceutical companies and Healthcare players.
Smaller and medium sized players do not even have the
resources to get such services. Imagine the inefficiencies
when one cannot look at the competitive landscape in an
environment where change is accelerated. Innoplexus
with its Data as a Service platform iPlexusTM is providing
real time decision support not only to Big Pharmas but
also Research Institutes, Treatment centres, Investors
and a number of small biotech. This platform crawls and
analyses hundreds of terabytes of data from the external
environment in real time for decision support.
Similarly, in Analytics as a Service offerings; even for
use cases where decision support follows a repetitive
schema, traditional offerings are all about positioning
analysts. This is not scalable given that enterprise data
is exploding at a tremendous pace. Our Continuous
Analytics as a Service applications triangulate enterprise
data with external data in real time providing decision
support for various use cases. Be it repurposing your
drug candidates, discovering Key Opinion Leaders,
identifying biomarkers or any other use case - why
should Pharmas be satisfied with one off projects and
decision support through static presentation slides?How does Innoplexus differentiate themselves
from their competitors?
Innoplexus differentiates itself on three counts. First
we believe in full automation, second is the breadth
as well as depth of the data we cover that continues
to increase each day and thirdly our emphasis on
continuous decision support. Decision makers ought
to get decision support where and when they need it.Please share your views on Data Analytics
scenario in India and Globally
Data Analytics is going to grow at a tremendous
pace in India as well as globally. However,
the focus going forward is clearly going to be
automation. DaaS and CAaS applications would
eventually also empower startups in the healthcare
space to create real innovations. Healthcare is
one area that requires novel solutions for India.
Copying and pasting models from abroad won't
always work for Indian scale and reality. Innovation
in India has to happen in Healthcare! We need to
empower physicians working tirelessly
in rural and semi-urban settings as well
as Researchers to research as well as
start enterprises in India rather than
going abroad. Government is playing a
tremendous role in facilitating the same
but the onus is on entrepreneurs like us!Do you think life science industry is
still dubitative about how to use and
make the most of the new IT scenario?
Why is that?
Life Sciences Industry has the same inertia
as others. I would look at this inertia with
respect to two aspects :
(1) Traditional paradigm of decision support
(2) Traditional Organisational Design of IT
organisations.
(1) Traditional paradigm for decision support:
The order of complexity in the pharmaceutical
market has increased substantially.
Regulations are tightening in various key
markets capping the pricing power of pharmas.
This also limits the returns to innovate - given
the limited period of market exclusivity that is
followed by Gx competition.
Relatively smaller patient populations
is a challenge for clinical development
as centres remain dry of patients but
regulatory agencies remain clawed to
traditional ways. Real World Evidence
remains a distant dream. A lot of investment
gravitates in Oncology and Neurology,
drying up Research & Development in
other therapeutic areas where with sheer
number of patients, its possibly needed
more. Mortality rates related to diseases
in other therapeutic areas, if treated and
managed well, have come down drastically.
New drugs in these areas cannot promise
substantial value over existing treatments,
hence the returns for Pharma companies
in these therapeutic areas are also limited.
On the other hand, more investments would
not mean higher success rates in Oncology
and Neurology. There will be a limited number
of R&D assets and capabilities including
people in these TAs that these investments
will chase. In addition, statistically there is a
limit to innovation throughput. This means by
increasing the number of drug candidates in
the beginning of the innovation funnel, one
cannot get a higher number of successful
drugs out in the end. In emerging markets,
market access remains a big challenge as
well. Pharmaceutical companies are trying
hard to address this increasingly complex
market reality.
However, the decision making remains a
batch process. Decision support even for
repetitive challenges is one off and requires
manual effort, be it from internal teams or
outside consultants. External environment
is tracked using expensive manually curated
data feeds and analytics for decision support
is typically a dumb dashboard if not a slide
deck affair. This takes time to change as
executives still have old ways and time
tested relationships with existing providers.
(2) Organisational Design of IT Organisations
: For new digital models one needs a
skunkworks approach. Colleagues need to
learn new technologies fast as older ones get
obsolete. One needs rapid prototyping and
close interaction as well as understanding of
the businesses. This doesn't mean that the
traditional IT is not useful anymore.
However, it does mean either IT
organisations need to embrace
ambidexterity to balance the exploitative
and exploratory nature of work or one needs
to house the digital skunkworks outside the
existing IT Organisations. It is also about the
performance management frameworks and
reward systems. Disruptive solutions need
to be recognised and rewarded differently;
only then can one have and retain the best
in class talent in organisations.How Data analytics is enhancing
accuracy and cost cutting in Pharma and
Lifescience sector?
Data analytics is driving value across
the entire value chain from discovery to
commercialisation. Industry is embracing
automation in all aspects. This has
Traditional business models of Data
Services and Analytics as a Service have to
reinvent themselves.
With growing volumes, veracity and velocity
of data; the future cannot be hundreds of
analysts curating data manually and selling
it at a significant premium to Pharmaceutical
companies and Healthcare players. Smaller
and medium sized players do not even have
the resources to get such services. Imagine
the inefficiencies when one cannot look at
the competitive landscape in an environment
where change is accelerated. Innoplexus
with its Data as a Service platform iPlexusTM
is providing real time decision support not
only to Big Pharmas but also Research
Institutes, Treatment centres, Investors and
a number of small biotech. This platform
crawls and analyses hundreds of terabytes
of data from the external environment in real
time for decision support.
Similarly, in Analytics as a Service offerings;
even for use cases where decision support
follows a repetitive schema, traditional
offerings are all about positioning analysts.
This is also not scalable given that enterprise
data is exploding at a tremendous pace.
Our Continuous Analytics as a Service
applications triangulate enterprise data with
external data in real time providing decision
support for various use cases.Please elucidate us on the Importance
of machine learning and artificial
intelligence for Life Sciences sector?
AI has been misused by many enterprises
to 'free ride' the wave. Many a times its used
recklessly and interchangeably with Machine
Learning. AI offers significant promise for
the future. It is critical to DaaS and CAaS
or any business model that envisions
complete automation. We see driverless
cars on freeways in California and AI based
approaches predict treatment options. In
India, we need innovation in automating
diagnostics and treatment decision support
for improving healthcare access. AI holds
significant promise, but a lot needs to be
done. We use both AI and ML in our Data as a
Service Platform iPlexusTM and in many of our
Continuous Analytics as a Service offerings,
the real time analysis of data with high velocity
and variability mandates AI for scale.How Data Analytics has reached to next
level and used widely with the help of
Artificial intelligence?
Traditional approaches based on manual
curation or stop gap arrangements using
some tools using manual intervention cannot
provide scale with increasing volume, velocity,
variability and veracity of data. Decision makers
need decision support at the time and platform
of their choosing. It needs to be continuous
and real time. AI holds promise for that new
paradigm of decision making.How Data analytics helping Pharma & Life
Sciences companies to make wise decisions?
Data analytics provides companies in the
Life Science Industry with decision support
throughout the value chain from discovery
till commercialisation. Be it discovering
Key Opinion Leaders at a specific stage
of the drug, understanding the competitive
landscape, discovering new biomarkers or
promising pathways, looking at possible
drug repurposing options, right trial designs,
regulatory strategies as well as field force
sizing and channel mix during or post launch
- data analytics is critical for all decisions.Which are the prominent and focused
sector for Innoplexus in India?
Innoplexus is not just a business
but a mission to create an impact.
We want to democratise data and
analytics, improving its reach to various
stakeholders in the industry no matter
big or small. We have recently concluded
an MoU with Regional Cancer Centre,
Gwalior to provide physicians with real
time intelligence on discovery as well as
clinical development and to assist them
with tapping the power of analytics.How iPlexus and KPlexus are useful for
the enterprises?
iPlexus provides real time decision support
with respect to the competitive l andscape
of a drug or a therapeutic area as well as
a specific company, biomarker, protein,
pathway or gene. It covers enormous
breadth of data that continues to increase
each day. Enterprises can know about any
development in their area of interest in real
time.
kPlexus is world's first real time Key
Opinion Leader discovery and management
platform. An enterprise can discover KOLs,
can view the updates on their work, manage
interactions as well as identify emerging
players for specific use cases in real time.
Various enterprise data sources such
as ISS/IST databases, CRM etc. can be
integrated into the platform seamlessly.Is DaaS (Data Analytics as a service) a
workable model in India?
Given the cost of manually curated
databases and consulting based decision
support business models, DaaS is the only
way going forward to provide intelligence to
Indian enterprises and stakeholders.Is Innoplexus in talks with any new
company/government hospitals for
providing services?
Our team is keen to partner with
Government and Government institutions
to leverage our platforms and technology
to improve healthcare and healthcare
outcomes for our citizens. Also, our
strategy of building a Continuous Analytics
ecosystem of applications on our iPlexusTM
DaaS platform makes partnerships key to
our growth. We want to collaborate with
different companies to use our data and
solve different problems to eventually
improve health outcomes.Innoplexus recently raised pre series A
fund from HCS, what are the plans for
next round of fund raising ( Timeline and
tentative amount)?
We are speaking to a number of interested
investors and partners to help us grow
further in key markets and build our IP. We
may close the next round this year.What, in your opinion, are the challenges
in regulation that need to be addressed?
We respect data privacy and protection rules
as well as guidelines of all geographies our
clients operate in. In India, specifically we
need to work on unified patient registries
to track healthcare outcomes. It remains
a big challenge with data security and
privacy related concerns - however its the
need of the hour. We cannot sharpen policy
tools, understand outcomes and assess
performance of healthcare delivery centres
until this is done. India has the potential to
become the largest Real World Evidence
data goldmine. We need to also invest in rule
based diagnostics for better screening at the
last mile of healthcare delivery.
All these themes present significant regulatory
challenges for enterprises with respect to data
security and governance in general.What are the hurdles before Innoplexus
in its march towards its goal of helping
organisations move to continuous
decision making by generating insights
from structured and unstructured private
and public data?
We need to remain agile than the
competition and continue to scale fast - a
challenge that's faced by all enterprises of
our size. As Andy Grove said, "Only the
Paranoid survive".What are the future plans of the company
in India and globally?
We want to be the DaaS standard with
iPlexusTM platform in Life Sciences Industry,
being a partner of choice for all stakeholders.
We want to build a comprehensive
application ecosystem on top of this
platform partnering with different players.
Doing this, we believe it is very important to
also provide data and analytics access also
to small and medium sized players.
In the next few months, we will also start
scaling our first pilots in other industries,
especially the Financial Services Industry.